You know that your veterinarian trained when he or she was getting a degree, but what happens after that? How does your vet learn what is new in medicine for your cat? Continuing education is required for vets in most states, though the hours vary from state to state. One of the ways that vets get their continuing education is by going to veterinary conferences and attending seminars, such as the North American Veterinary Community (NAVC) conference that just wrapped up in Orlando yesterday.

At the NAVC conference, the 16,000 attending vets had the chance to take classes about a dizzying range of topics, from risk assessment and treatment of feline cardiac patients to the role of anxiety in feline house soiling. There are plenty of courses about other animals, too, from dogs to chinchillas to dolphins to horses. If your vet was one of the 16,000 who attended, they are returning with lots of information they can put to use right away.

Veterinary Products

Like most conferences, NAVC has an accompanying expo. It featured the vast array of products you would imagine, like pharmaceuticals, prescription foods, and medical supplies. It also featured some unexpected things like big trucks converted to create mobile veterinary practices.

Among the thousands of products featured at the expo were not one but two new FeLV/FIV rapid tests, Witness from Zoestis and the Abaxis VetScan. Neither of them require refrigeration, unlike the commonly used SNAP tests, so these could prove to be useful, especially with veterinarians who do outreach work for rescue organizations in locations without ready refrigeration.

Watson for Veterinarians

It’s literally impossible for your vet to read every study published in every journal. But a computer can sift through that information, if it’s programmed intelligently. Do you remember IBM Watson, the computer who won on Jeopardy? IBM has teamed up with the new NAVC/AAHA joint VetFolio site to make Watson’s skill at answering questions work for veterinarians as well as game show audiences.

LifeLearn Sofie is an intelligent treatment support tool that uses Watson’s cognitive computing to assess and interpret vast amounts of data and perform research on demand. When a veterinarian asks it a question in natural language, Sofie will provide focused, evidence-based treatment options. With a tool like this, vets have a lot more resources at their fingertips than they can keep in their heads, just by asking a question. That’s an innovative way to use technology to help meet your cat’s health care needs.

Why This Matters to You

Your vet relies on the latest in knowledge and techniques to help make the best treatment decisions and have the best outcomes for your cat. Continuing education helps your vet be ready to provide better treatment options for your cat and more peace of mind for you.

One of the pieces of advice that we often see given to people upset that their cat is scratching on their furniture is to give the cat an alternative item to scratch, like a scratching post. But that advice misses a key piece of information: how big the scratching post must be.

Often, scratching posts are barely as tall as an adult cat. Advertising or product packaging may have photos of cute kittens crawling and scratching on the post, which makes you not think about its actual height. But if you take that same scratching post home, your adult kitty is dismayed to discover that they can’t stretch out while they scratch on it.

Pierre shows that the well-used area of the scratching post is actually above his head when he is sitting next to the post.

The solution is to buy a tall cat tree at least one and one half times your cat’s body height to allow a good stretch while scratching. We cats think the taller the better, and we prefer scratching the 4 foot leg of cat tree rather than the 2 foot leg next to it.

Just keep in mind that the taller the cat tree, the wider or more sturdy the base needs to be to prevent it being wobbly or tipping over. A cat who has a tree fall over on them may never use it again out of fear or mistrust.

A little adjustment to the height of your cat tree can bring a big difference in your cat’s acceptance level of it as a good location to scratch. And your furniture will thank you!

One of the top reasons that people surrender their cats is for not using the litterbox. Even after being checked by a vet to be sure that there’s no physical reason for not using the box, some cats don’t use their litterbox because they don’t like the box itself, often because it’s too small. Cats prefer a litter box at least 1.5 times the length of their body, and some cats don’t like having their tail touching the side of the box while they do their business.

A recent trip to a local big box pet store showed that the largest litterbox for sale there, advertised as sized extra large, measured 16.5″ wide x 22″ long. If you have a big kitty, this may not be big enough for him to feel comfortable. But what can you do about it if it’s the biggest cat box manufactured?

Think outside the box and use something that wasn’t manufactured to be a litterbox.

Mortar Mixing Tray

Newton inspects mortar mixing tray next to his litterbox

A typical 26 gallon concrete mixing tray or mixing tub is 36″ x 24″ with a depth of about 8,” but they come as large as 60″ x 36.” This width and depth increase may be enough to make your kitty more comfortable using the box. As a bonus, most concrete mixing trays have rounded corners at the bottom that make it easier for you to scoop the litter without things getting stuck in the corners. You can find them at your local home improvement store, and they are sold in different materials, some more durable than others.

Sweater/Blanket Storage Bin

Clear plastic sweater or blanket storage bins come in an amazing variety of sizes and shapes. Some are wide and low, intended for storing items under your bed. These long, somewhat narrow boxes may help you fit a larger litterbox into a smaller space like a hallway where you still need room to walk past. Tall-sided bins can make useful boxes for cats who don’t squat far enough when using the litterbox and end up going over the side. Make sure that if you choose a high-sided litterbox that your cat can comfortably get in and out. Small kittens and older, arthritic cats, may not be able to get in to take care of business if they have to make a jump every time.

At our house, we have both a regular litterbox and a clear plastic storage bin next to it.

Plastic Storage Tote

Similar to the clear storage bin, plastic storage totes come in a number of shapes and sizes. You can get totes so large that they are marketed to store artificial Christmas trees. Like some of the taller storage bins, be sure that your cat can easily exit and enter the tote after it contains litter to prevent their avoiding it, too. Your local home improvement store has shelves and shelves of bins in all kinds of sizes.

You can use the tote or bin as-is, or customize it further by cutting an entrance into it to create a lower step-in entry but high sides. this custom-converted storage tote was made for our friend Timmy and his roomates.

Wading Pool

Hard plastic wading pools, intended for children to splash in during hot summer months, can offer big kitties lots of space. You can buy them at various big box stores and even some grocery stores during the spring and summer months, and they range in size from 36″ to 60″ across. Keep in mind that these can be hard to come by during the winter, and if you are worried you may need to discard your old pool and get another one, consider buying and storing an extra. Also, the plastic of these pools is unlikely stand up well if you try to relocate a full litter pool, so make sure you have a final location in mind before filling it with litter.

No matter what you choose, there are lots of options to make sure that your cat’s litterbox is big enough to keep him taking care of business in the right location!

Our grandpeep was a lifelong smoker. The last year of her life, while she was in treatment for smoking-related cancer, she and her two cats (including Cousin Earl) moved in with Aunt O. It was months of their living in a smoke-free home before anyone could snuggle one of those cats and not have them smell like an ashtray.

Cousin Earl smelled like cigarettes for months after arriving in a nonsmoking environment

That odor on a smoker’s cat’s fur is just like what you smell when a smoker shares an elevator ride with you on their way back from a smoke break. It’s something that American Journal of Pediatrics was the first to call third-hand smoke, residual tobacco smoke contamination that remains after the cigarette is extinguished. This residue can be on clothing, hair, furniture, carpeting, or even in your cat’s fur. A cat living with a smoker has 14-15 cigarette’s worth of toxins in his fur, and of course, the cat never smoked a cigarette himself. It’s all third hand smoke.

Have you ever gotten home from a party and smelled cigarette smoke on yourself? You probably tossed your clothing in the laundry and washed your hair. Cats don’t have the luxury of doing that. Their fur is their clothing, so they clean themselves the way they always do, grooming with their tongue. This exposes the delicate skin of their mouth and tongue to all of the toxins they are trying to clean off, and of course they ingest it, too. This on top of the secondhand smoke they breathed while the cigarette was burning.

A 2007 Tufts Veterinary School study showed linked oral cancer in cats to living with smokers. Cats living with more than one smoker and cats exposed to environmental tobacco smoke for longer than five years had even higher rates of this cancer. Second hand smoke was also linked to cancer in cats in a 2002 Tufts University study, with cats living with smokers twice as likely to develop malignant lymphoma as cats in nonsmoking households.

How can you Keep your Cat Safe from Toxins in Cigarette Smoke?

The most obvious way to prevent this health impact to your cat is to quit smoking. It’s healthier for you and your cat. If you don’t think you can quit without help, many employers now offer free smoking cessation programs because it’s better for their insurance bottom line, so take advantage of them if you need them.

Not everyone is ready to quit. If you can’t, the ASPCA recommends that you “take it outside” to smoke so that a large share of the smoke particles remain outside and don’t impact your indoor cat.

Wash your hands after you smoke and before you touch your cat. If you only smoke once or twice a day, consider changing your clothes to prevent transferring toxic residue from your clothing to your cat when you snuggle.

Be mindful that your choices don’t just impact your own health, but your cat’s health, too, and both of you can have longer, happier lives together!

Read Ashton’s Story in Rescued, Volume 2

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Disclaimer

There are no veterinarians here. All health-related posts are the result of research and observation, but educational information is not a substitute for visiting your veterinarian. Do not self-diagnose your cat. For more information, see our disclaimer.